


Façade of Reality

by lesnuffles



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesnuffles/pseuds/lesnuffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor. Victor Trevor. What other time had John heard that name? He’d never did it, that was the point. He’d only seen the name, in that bloody note Sherlock had left him before disappearing into thin air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Façade of Reality

John remembered perfectly well the first time he heard the name Victor Trevor, although he didn’t think it was very important at the time. Looking back now, he regretted not having been concerned about it before, but what was really so extraordinary about Sherlock mumbling a stranger’s name while he worked?

It had been a rather tough day. Sherlock had been working on a pretty hard case that required more competence than John was capable of. His demanding flatmate had wanted him to help during an apparently very complicated and crucial experiment, so he had John pass him things that the doctor could only wonder the use of, reading aloud names that seemed more like tongue-twisters than actual words. After demonstrating his evident inadequacy for the role (and after his umpteenth wrong result), Sherlock had snorted and muttered in a low voice, “Victor would know.”

_Victor would know._

That was the beginning, John though as he sat on a chair in his new house, slowly massaging his temples in an effort to remember anything else—a hint, a trace, something that might help him understand. He nervously licked his lips.

The second time Victor was mentioned, it had been one of those calm, reassuring evenings in front of the fireplace, just the two of them and the sound of the crackling fire against the rain pattering on the windows. It was one of those evenings in which they frequently found themselves so bored they pulled out a deck of cards, or a chess board, or anything else Sherlock found with the rest of the table games.

“God, John, didn't you see the cards that came out to this point? I _obviously_ had the queen of hearts in my hand,” Sherlock had snorted, dramatically placing his last card down and ending the game. “You play, but you don't focus. You don't plan, like Victor used to. Exasperating.”

John wished he had taken the time to ask Sherlock about it—actually, on that particular occasion, he was much too pissed off from having lost three rounds to care. Still, if he had _known_ , he could have just asked…

Then again, it was useless to cry over spilt milk. He sighed again as he heard the echoing steps of someone walking toward him, and then felt Mary’s lips against his cheek. She sat on the arm of the sofa, asking softly for any news.

John shook his head silently and cleared his throat before speaking. “Greg’s still at the Yard. He’s trying to track down whoever this bloody…Victor Trevor is. The other blokes are still around town searching for Sherlock, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, isn’t it?” His voice was shaking a little as he tightened his fist. “I should be out there helping.”

Mary touched his cheek gently with a light smile. She was worried, too, but somehow she managed to sound much more convincing that she felt. “Just wait for Greg to get here, yeah? It’s the best thing you can do. It’ll all be fine.”

John forced himself to nod and smile back at her. Mary mumbled something about tea and disappeared behind the door again. Once she was out of eyeshot, John closed his eyes. If Sherlock were here, he would have made fun of his inability to just _focus_. But God, how was it possible to focus when his best friend was missing and only two words as a map to find him?

He had Sherlock's voice in his head, telling him that _caring was not an advantage_. Sherlock would have been able to -to think straight to the point, notice any details that could help. Victor, Victor…

Victor. What other time had John heard that name?

Several disconnected instances popped to the front of his mind: a whisper from the kitchen; a reference while working on a case; Sherlock’s voice forming those two syllables—Vic-tor—and only those two. John stopped himself and opened his eyes. The surname, Trevor. When had he heard that?

He’d _never_ heard it. That was the point. He’d only _seen_ the name, in that bloody note Sherlock had left him before disappearing into thin air. John lowered his hand, looking at the sheet of paper that bore the words “Victor Trevor” in his friend’s thin, elegant handwriting. It said nothing more.

Who the hell was he? A new, dangerous criminal? A client who had kept Sherlock busy for an entire week? John hadn’t heard any news from him since then, and no one else had seen him those seven days right after the wedding.

John stood up, deciding to go straight to his old flat, as though it would be any use. At the same time, the door of the house opened, revealing a breathless, desperate Lestrade. John stared at him for a moment, raising his eyebrows in a silent request for an explanation. Greg hesitated before speaking.

“He just—“ Lestrade looked around for a moment, taking a deep breath. “He just doesn’t exist, John. Victor Trevor…isn’t real.”

 

_Sherlock looked up at the other children playing in the garden, just outside the_ _classroom. From the window, he could see them all. Some were just running after one_ _another, screaming. Another group of four of five were sitting in a circle, talking intently_ _about who knew what._

_He snorted, trying to focus back on the book in his hand. It was Mycroft’s present for his_ _ninth birthday, and Sherlock was determined on finishing it, even if it was a little too_ _difficult for him. It had no pictures at all, and he had to look up words in his dictionary_ _every couple of sentences. He looked back down on page and started where he had left_ _off._

_“My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again...”_

_Sherlock sighed. How was he supposed to focus on the story if there were no pictures to_ _look at? Maybe it would be better if he read it aloud. Mycroft used to read it out loud to_ _him not so long ago, and Sherlock never got distracted. Maybe that was the secret._

_He cleared his throat before starting again. “...But crept back to the bank again, whence,_ _sh--sheltering my head behind a... a bush of broom, I might command the road before our_ _door.” Sherlock wasn’t sure he had caught the meaning of the sentence and felt a little_ _stupid. No one reads out loud if they don’t have an audience to listen._

_Sherlock looked back out the window. There was no way any of the children from his_ _class would sit next to him and listen to the adventures of Jim Hawkins only because he_ _asked them to. Or maybe some of them—the ones who looked at him admiringly each_ _time he spoke, as if he were from a different plant—maybe they would, but Sherlock_ _didn’t want them._

_That was, he told himself, because none of them were his friends. Everybody had friends._ _Sherlock saw them. But apparently you couldn’t just pick someone and make them your_ _friend. Not to mention best friends, which were an entirely different kind, even more rare_ _than regular friends. Sherlock wouldn’t have minded one of those._

_He started thinking about it. It was a nice topic. Sherlock’s friend would be a child of his_ _age, of course, so they could go to school together. He’d live close, so he could come to_ _Sherlock’s house and play in the lonely afternoons usually spent in his room._

_He’d be a little shorter than Sherlock, because he liked being the tall one. And maybe_ _blond. Or ginger. There weren’t very many gingers in his class, so maybe ginger friends_ _were as rare as best friends. Yes, his friend would have ginger hair, and curly, too,_ _because Sherlock liked his own curly hair._

_As the days passed, Sherlock’s ideas about his best friend became more clear. He could_ _almost see him perfectly in his mind. One day, while the other children were playing_ _outside during recreation time, he stayed inside, as always, and drew his friend. Once he_ _was finished, he realized his friend lacked one very important thing: a name._

_Sherlock thought very hard about it. He didn’t want his friend to have a stupid name, but_ _he didn’t want him to have a strange one, either. Sherlock’s was odd enough for the both_ _of them—he knew how much it hurt when other children made fun of you for your name,_ _and he didn’t want his friend to go through any of that._

_In the end, he chose “Victor.” Victor was the scientist in that movie Mycroft didn’t want_ _him to see—the one with the monster—and none of the people he knew had that name._ _Sherlock found the surname Trevor in one of his father’s books, and he liked it so much_ _he decided it was fitting of his friend. He couldn’t have been more happy about it; the_ _stranger from his drawing had a name now, and Sherlock had someone to read Treasure_ _Island to._

 

“What do you mean, 'he doesn't exist'?”

Lestrade sighed, exasperated. “I looked anywhere! Birth certificates, death certificates, property titles. His name doesn't appear anywhere. It’s as if he was never born, like he…doesn’t exist.”

 

_Sherlock learned quickly not to talk too much about Victor. His classmates weren’t as_ _smart as he was, so they wouldn’t understand, anyway. But even when he mentioned his_ _friend to Mycroft, he only frowned and said nothing, and his brother was the most_ _intelligent person Sherlock knew._

_He couldn’t understand why no one seemed to get it. He discussed the issue with Victor_ _several times; he was the only one who would sit and listen to Sherlock talk for hours on_ _end. “Maybe,” he told Victor once, “maybe there’s just something about having a best_ _friend no one else can see. I never got what Tom sees in Bill, either, but they’re always_ _together. Like us.”_

_Victor would always nod and smile, and sometimes he’d say something like, “Adults are_ _stupid, Sherlock. Let’s go do something fun. Let’s play pirates.” Sherlock liked when they_ _played pirates because Victor called him ‘Captain’ and would do whatever he said with a_ _wide smile. Sherlock knew Victor thought he was amazing, and that was a pleasant_ _thought._

_Everything about Victor was pleasant, to be honest. That’s why Sherlock didn’t_ _understand why once, when Mycroft opened his bedroom door while Sherlock was_ _explaining photosynthesis to Victor, his brother only opened his mouth in shock, closed it_ _again, and shook his head._

 

John fell back into his chair again, closing his eyes. His fingers nervously drummed on the rough texture of the arms. Why was Sherlock’s note only the name of some bloke no one seemed to know? What the hell was he supposed to do?

Riddles. John wasn’t good at them. Sherlock knew that, so why would he—

John realized he was clenching his fists so hard they hurt.

“John.” Mary's voice was low and soft beside him. “John, calm down.”

 

_Sherlock took a deep breath and held his head down in an effort to hide behind the brush_ _in the rear of the college’s main building. It wasn’t easy; he’d grown up fast in the last_ _few years, becoming taller (and skinnier; his mother never failed to remind him of that)._ _He closed his eyes, trying to listen for the sound of his classmates passing by._

_Things had steadily gotten worse since his first year there, and especially since_ _Sherlock’s classmates discovered how easy it was to catch him while he walked home and_ _“rough him up a little.” Not too badly, but just enough to make him arrive home covered_ _in bruises and blood. His mother would scream, and Mycroft would go back and forth on_ _what to do about it. That’s why he hid._

_He didn’t like doing it. He didn’t want anyone to think he was afraid, or that he wasn’t_ _their equal (he wasn’t, obviously). But facing them would have only made things worse,_ _and he really didn’t need that. Sherlock kept his eyes closed, the weight in his chest_ _steadily piling on. He’d only recently learned its name: loneliness._

_Sherlock swallowed. He knew what he had to do. It was a magic word; all he had to do_ _was say it, but there was still a part of him that refused to. It was silly—childish—but_ _who cared, if it made him feel better? He was on his own, anyway. What could go wrong_ _with just making things a bit more acceptable?_

_His eyes still glued shut, he focused on the shape of his body, his profile, the curly hair_ _and the big eyes and—but he had grown up, hadn’t he? Sherlock imagined how he would_ _have developed. He’d be taller, as tall as Sherlock this time, and thin and pale, too, so he_ _wouldn’t see anything strange in him. Sherlock slowly opened his eyes, looking next to_ _him where there was enough room for a second person to be huddled up and hiding._

_Sherlock opened his mouth, and a smile played on his lips when he realized how easy it was to see his friend. His voice was a low whisper._

_“...Victor?”_

 

“I am not calming down!” John hadn’t realized he had started to scream. “I am not fucking calming down, okay? Because Sherlock is gone, and that bastard's name is all we have to go on, and you know what? It’s not even a real name!”

 

_“Go away, Mycroft!”_

_“You obviously need my help.”_

_“I d-don't... just go...”_

_“Sherlock.”_

_“...”_

_“Fine.”_

_Sherlock waited for his brother to leave the room before throwing himself on his bed, his_ _whole body still shaking and aching. He wiped the blood from his face, noticing his_ _fingers were wet with tears, as well. His parent’s horrified voices still echoed in his head,_ _almost unbearable._

_He just wanted to leave. Just leave it all and run away, where no one would ever find him_ _again. It didn’t matter where. The more he thought about it, the better he felt. It kept him_ _distracted from the pain, the arguments just outside his door, the names he’d been_ _called…_

_It didn’t matter. Sherlock closed his eyes and let his mind take over. It was the only place_ _no one else was allowed to enter. His mind was his palace, and he was the king, the_ _captain. In a blink of an eye, he was back in the garden, reading Treasure Island out loud._ _In another, he was experimenting with his first chemistry set. No matter where he went,_ _though, a familiar shape kept appearing in the corner of his memories, sitting with_ _crossed legs on his bed, always interested in whatever Sherlock was doing._

_The bruise on Sherlock’s shoulder hurt against his bed as he moved, bringing him back to_ _reality. Sherlock closed his eyes tighter. He wanted to stay there; he needed to stay there,_ _even if it wasn’t real, because it was all happening in his mind--_

_Victor was sitting in front of him, a small smile on his lips. He was always smiling in_ _every memory Sherlock had of him, always omnipresent and somehow comforting._ _Sherlock chose one of the rooms in his mind palace and stared at Victor Trevor, who_ _suddenly felt more concrete and real than ever._

_Sherlock’s heart beat loudly, and his bones still ached. “You’re not real,” he sighed, his_ _voice shaking slightly. Victor kept smiling. “If you’re real,” Sherlock continued, “why_ _didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you help me? Why did you let this happen?”_

_The world shifted, and Sherlock found himself in the little tool shed he and Victor found_ _when they were ten years old, the one they’d hide in to read or talk. Sherlock looked up at_ _Victor, who just smiled._

_“We can stay here,” Victor said softly. “We can stay here, Sherlock. I’m real here. We can stay here together, and no one would ever know.”_

 

“There must be something we didn't consider,” Greg said, facing Mary, as John wasn’t really in the mood for a discussion. “Something we missed—”

John bit his lip before standing up, a determined look on his face. “Baker Street. Now.”

 

_And so they stayed. Day after day, year after year. All Sherlock had to do was close his_ _eyes to see Victor at his side. He spent endless days talking to his friend silently; he’d_ _already learned not to speak out loud for fear of strange looks or, if Mycroft were_ _around, worried ones._

_He didn’t really care what anyone else though, anyway. The more Sherlock grew up, the_ _more people around him tried to avoid him. And that was fine. It left more room for_ _Victor, who was always there, in the corner of his mind. Sometimes he’d even sit next to_ _Sherlock in class, or glance at him from a window._

_Eventually they learned to speak without words. Sherlock needed only to give Victor a_ _look, and he would understand. Most of their conversations took place in Sherlock’s mind_ _palace, though. He went there whenever he found himself in trouble; Victor was just as_ _intelligent as Sherlock was, so he could always ask him for help. He liked science just as_ _much as Sherlock, too, and was particularly talented at finding the small details Sherlock_ _missed. They were quite the winning pair._

_But Sherlock didn’t realize that things were starting to get worse. It happened gradually;_ _he grew lonelier, skinnier, paler, and, according to his mother, sadder. As the names his_ _classmates called him became worse, the weaker Victor became in his mind, as though he_ _were slowly fading away from beside him._

_Sherlock picked up smoking, and soon he knew he’d never be able to quit. There was_ _some unknown force pushing him to smoke one cigarette after the other, a voice_ _whispering in his ear for one more, just one more, always one more. Sherlock was soon_ _convinced the voice was Victor. It had to be. Maybe smoking would bring him back._

_But smoking wasn't enough. Five, six, eleven cigarettes, they seemed to have no effect,_ _they all finished too soon, leaving him craving for more and more. Locked up in his room_ _-or was it the highest tower of his mind palace, with Victor next to him?- the smoke_ _straining the air, his breath heavy and his heart beating like crazy, he realized that he_ _wasn't ever going to be enough._

_He needed something stronger._

 

“You won’t get anywhere that way,” Mycroft said calmly, suddenly appearing at John and Mary’s front door.

John felt as though the floor had given way under his feet. “What do you mean? Where's Sherlock?”

“Come with me, John.”

 

_The pain was incredible, unbearable. Sherlock felt his entire body burning and aching, a_ _bitter taste in his mouth as he was caught in one of his worst nightmares. He opened his_ _mouth, desperately searching for fresh air. He tried to move, but his muscles didn’t listen,_ _keeping him shaking immobile and shaking uncontrollably._

_“Hey, what's wrong with that one?”_

_“Damn. I told him not to go overboard with it.”_

_Sherlock was aware people was speaking nearby, but their voices were muddled and_ _spun all around him. He tried to open his eyes, but everything was out of focus. There_ _were shadows moving all around, walking back and forth, making a lot of noise that beat_ _painfully inside Sherlock’s head._

_“Shit, they're coming!”_

_“Quick, let’s get out of here!”_

_“What're we going to do with that one?”_

_“Hey, you—hey, can you hear me?”_

_Sherlock blinked. Someone was looking at him, but he could hardly distinguish the face of_ _the man shaking his shoulder, trying to rouse him. He had light eyes and a wide_ _forehead, and—Sherlock blinked again—was he blond? He couldn’t tell; it was so dark…_

_He forced the word out. “Victor?”_

_“Vince, leave him alone. He’s high.”_

_“We can't just leave him here!”_

_Sherlock tried to stand, but he stumbled a bit and felt like he was going to vomit. Strong_ _arms helped him back down again. He rested his head against the cold brick wall, his_ _mouth half-open, forcing himself to focus on the stranger._

_“Goddammit, Vince! We’ve got to go; if they find us here—”_

_“Just... hey, you, I'll be right back, okay? Did you hear me? You'll be fine.”_

_He was talking to Sherlock, his voice fast and nervous. Sherlock tried to nod, but his head_ _felt heavy and he couldn’t move it from its spot against the wall. He just sat, a smile_ _growing on his lips. It was Victor. It had to be Victor. He was there, real, and he gave_ _Sherlock what he really needed. He’d be back, and they’d be together again…_

 

They found Sherlock in an old tool shed, wrapped up in his coat, unconscious, his mouth open and his eyes darting back and forth as though he were living in a nightmare. John swallowed and knelt next to him, checking his heartbeat, trying to wake him up.

Sherlock opened his mouth, and, with quivering lip, managed to speak only one word.

 

_“V-Victor?”_

_“H-hang on there, okay? Be right back.”_

_Sherlock nodded and suddenly couldn’t keep his eyes open. He sat and waited, not paying_ _attention to the sirens or cars or people shouting around him. He was only focused on_ _breathing, because Victor was coming back. Victor would save him. He wouldn’t leave_ _and disappear, like everyone else did. Like everyone else always did._

_He felt a tight grip on his shoulder, bringing him back to reality and planting his feet on the ground._

_Mycroft._

 

“You'll be fine, Sherlock. You'll be fine.”


End file.
